Beatles Museum To Close Due To ‘Lack Of Interest’

(FILES) - Picture taken on May 28, 2009 shows figures of the "Beatles" on display during a press preview of the "Beatlemania" exhibition on May 28, 2009 in Hamburg, northern Germany. The museum in the Hamburg red-light district where the Fab Four first exploded on to the pop scene nearly five decades ago is shutting its doors this month, it said on June 7, 2012. AFP PHOTO DDP/ROLAND MAGUNIA GERMANY OUT (Photo credit should read ROLAND MAGUNIA/AFP/GettyImages)

Photo: ROLAND MAGUNIA/AFP/GettyImages

The Beatles may have a history in Hamburg, but despite the band’s early ties to the German city, a Fab Four museum there is closing its doors due to “lack of interest.”

The privately-owned museum, named Beatlemania, will shut down at the end of June. Located on the Reeperbahn strip near where the Beatles played their earliest shows, the museum is home to more than 1,000 pieces of Beatle memorabilia and interactive features sprawled across five floors. But the museum has received a mere 150,000 visitors since opening in May 2009. (Fab Four fanatics can get a sense of the museum through photos and videos on its official website.)

Explaining the situation, Beatlemania manager Folkert Koopmanns told German newspaper Hamburger Morgenpost: “In view of the high deficits, there is no solution left but closure, if you want to act responsibly. A privately run museum as big as Beatlemania is condemned to fail without public support. That’s a fact we fought against until enthusiasm turned into resignation – a bitter experience. We had many hopes and wishes, unfortunately, only some of them were fulfilled in the city [in] which John Lennon used to say he became an adult.”

While Lennon may have “become an adult” in Hamburg, the town the Beatles put on the map – Liverpool, England – is also home to a number of Fab Four tourist attractions, including the museum The Beatles Story.